// description
A hierarchical classification of cognitive learning objectives, moving from lower-order to higher-order thinking: Remember → Understand → Apply → Analyse → Evaluate → Create. Used in curriculum design, lesson planning, and assessment to ensure learning activities develop progressively deeper understanding.
// history
Benjamin Bloom and colleagues published the original taxonomy in 1956 as a framework for educational objectives. It was revised in 2001 by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl, changing the noun-based original (Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation) to verb-based categories and reordering to place "Create" at the top. Bloom's Taxonomy remains the most widely used framework in educational curriculum design globally and underpins national education standards, teacher training, and instructional design.
// example
Designing a Midjourney course using Bloom's: Remember (learn the interface and basic syntax). Understand (explain what different parameters do). Apply (create images using prompts for a specific style). Analyse (compare different prompt approaches and explain why one produces better results). Evaluate (critique your own and others' work against quality criteria). Create (develop an original visual style and prompt system for a specific use case). Most courses stay at Apply. Great courses go to Create.
// katharyne's take
Bloom's Taxonomy is the framework I use most consciously when I'm building course curriculum. The question it forces me to ask is: am I teaching people to know things, or to do things, or to create things? The higher up the taxonomy, the more transformative the learning. A student who can name the parameters in Midjourney remembers — useful. One who builds their own distinct visual style creates — transformative. Aim for Create. Structure everything below it as scaffolding, not the destination.
// creative uses
- Audit your current course or workshop against all six levels: does every module have at least one Create-level activity? If your final assessment is a quiz (Remember/Understand), replace it with a deliverable — a published KDP listing, a completed Etsy product, a portfolio of Midjourney images in their own style. Create-level outcomes are what generate testimonials worth using.
- Use Bloom's to price-tier your digital products: a PDF that teaches concepts (Remember/Understand) justifies one price; a template that helps people Apply justifies a higher price; a workshop that guides students through Analyse and Evaluate justifies a higher price still; a coaching programme that produces Create-level outcomes justifies your highest price. Match your price to your Bloom's level.
- Apply the taxonomy to your own skill development as a KDP creator: don't just learn new Midjourney techniques (Remember/Apply) — build original style guides, critique your own outputs against a defined aesthetic standard (Evaluate), and develop a signature visual system nobody else is using (Create). That's the skill level that produces differentiated products.
// quick actions
- Look at your current or planned course and identify the highest Bloom's level each module reaches. If most modules top out at Apply, redesign one module this week to include an Analyse or Evaluate activity: ask students to compare two approaches and explain why one works better for their specific use case.
- Rewrite your course sales page outcome statements using Create-level language: replace "you will learn how to use Midjourney" with "you will build your own original prompt library and develop a distinctive visual style ready to monetise on KDP and Etsy." Create-level outcomes are more compelling and more accurate if your course actually delivers them.
- Map a skill you're currently learning against Bloom's six levels. Where are you right now? What would the next level up look like in practice? Build one specific activity this week that operates at that next level — not reading about it, but doing it.
// prompt ideas
Audit my course curriculum against Bloom's Taxonomy. Here is a list of my modules and what students do in each one: [paste your outline]. Identify what level of the taxonomy each module reaches, highlight any modules stuck at Remember or Understand, and suggest one specific activity upgrade per module to push it at least one level higher.
I'm designing a new course on [topic] for [audience]. Using Bloom's Taxonomy, help me structure the curriculum so each module builds cognitive depth progressively — starting at Remember and ending at a genuine Create-level outcome. What would the final project or deliverable look like if students actually reached Create?
Rewrite my course sales page outcome statements using Bloom's Create-level language. Here are my current outcomes: [paste them]. Replace any statements that describe what students will "know" or "understand" with outcomes that describe what they will create, build, develop, or produce — the language that actually justifies the price and generates testimonials worth using.